Apple recently posted a new trailer for City of Heroes Mac Special Edition, the recently released super-hero themed MMO. The game allows Intel Mac owners to join in the action as a hero or villain. The Mac version features both City of Heroes and City of Villains as well an exclusive Valkyrie costume set.

In 2004 City of Heroes® was launched, bringing the world of comic books alive in the first massively multiplayer game of its kind, and winning numerous awards. In 2005 City of Villains® arrived representing the dark side of the struggle between good and evil, and again received heavy critical acclaim.

Today the battle continues. Players have created millions of unique heroes and villains and set off to fight crime in Paragon City™ or become infamous villains in the Rogue Isles™. City of Heroes® Mac Special Edition includes both award-winning titles in one box, along with a set of exclusive in-game items!

The only question is whether to protect Paragon City as a crime fighting hero or help Lord Recluse™ bring it to its knees!

Mac Special Edition includes the following exclusive in-game items: Mission Teleporter Power - Players can save time and get right into the action by teleporting directly to their active mission. Exclusive Valkyrie Costume set - Costume pieces include two varieties of wings, a cape, a skirt/kilt, pants, boots, shoulders, chest, gloves, belts, and helmet with multiple details.

Inside Mac Games has posted a review of one of the most recent entries to the Dash series of games from PlayFirst, Cooking Dash. This time around, Flo finds herself on the other side of the counter, making the dishes for the customers. Here is an excerpt from the review:

So the business of seating customers is a little less involved than in the Diner series. To counterbalance this, there are lots more things that Flo has to do in terms of picking and serving food. Every restaurant in the game has a range of different types of food: tubs of ice-cream, various cooked main courses with optional sauce, fruit smoothies, sandwiches or pizza slices, desserts and cakes. Customers will not order multiple courses, unless they're in a very good mood, in which case they may order a cake to finish with. So in general you don't have to run through a full menu of starter, main course, dessert and drink for each customer; they will just ask for one primary item and then want to go. But nevertheless, the cooked main-course items take a few stages to prepare.

Gamasutra has published a classic article first printed in Game Developer magazine in 1994. The feature offers a behind the scenes examination of the development of Doom, the classic id Software first person shooter which helped to launch a gaming genre.

With the knowledge that Carmack had gained from working on the Raven engine, he started work on Doom. The Raven engine was much more advanced than Wolfenstein. It could render sloping floors, map texture on any side of a cube (in Wolfenstein, a cube had to be the same on all sides), allow different textures for the ceiling, and create walls at angles other than 90 degrees. Unfortunately, the technology used by the Raven engine was as advanced as it would get, so to work on Doom, Carmack had to start from scratch.

Three revisions later, Carmack had a game engine with performance that met his expectations. By breaking the map down into small sectors and reordering them so that the engine was able to make use of the 486’s internal cache, the engine was optimized for fast machines.

The final Doom engine has a medium detail mode option that doubles the pixel width horizontally and triples the speed of the game on slower machines. Another important addition to the Doom engine was allowing all objects to have physical characteristics, such as weight, momentum, and even sound.

One feature that was built in from the beginning was a multiplayer option. Id added this feature with an eye toward the future. The Doom designers felt that multiplayer games would become increasingly important as the Internet and other forms of commercial networks become part of more homes.

Although Id expects less than 10 percent of players of Doom to make use of the ability, up to four players can join the same game over a Novell IPX network. Id designers felt it was important to start working on multiplayer games now, so they would have the experience when it was more crucial to their development.

In a recent post on the company's forums Blizzard Entertainment community manager Nethaera confirmed that work on a film adaptation of the popular World of Warcraft MMO is still underway. Nethaera also revealed that the film will be a live action production rather than an animated feature.

We are in fact working on a movie with Legendary Pictures, but we don't have any new information to share with everyone just yet. At the 2007 BlizzCon, we even had a special panel with a little bit about the plans for the film. I'm sure you can find video on it or reports on it.

Just as an additional informational bit, it will be Live Action.

I'm quite sure there will be plenty of action, but there's a story to be told too. I couldn't tell you more though.

Mac|Life recently posted a new review of Aquaria, Bit Blot's 2D sidescrolling underwater adventure game. Brought to the Mac by Ambrosia Software, the game allows player to take the role of Naija and work to unlock the secrets of her past while defeating or outwitting the various creatures encountered along the way. Mac|Life gave the game a score of 5 out of 5.

From the review:

Naija’s singing voice summons “the Verse,” which is sort of like the Force. By singing certain tunes, she can cast spells, move objects, and so on. Since you learn these songs over time, you’ll often backtrack when you realize you can now bust through previously inaccessible roadblocks. You’re allowed to drop markers on the game map as “notes to self,” but even then, it’s easy to get lost—zoom out on the map with your mouse’s scrollwheel, and you’ll see how huge this world really is.

As you keep exploring, enemies attack you. You start with just a Shield song and the ability to swim away. But eventually, you learn how to take on other forms, including an Energy form that lets you shoot fireballs at enemies, a Fish form to disguise yourself, and a Sun form that illuminates dark places. Some creatures come to your aid, from friendly jellyfish to sea horses and turtles you can ride.

The recipe system is robust—Naija collects ingredients and learns how to combine them into dozens of items. The finished concoctions regenerate her health or give her temporary abilities, adding another level of strategy and complexity to the game. While hunting for clues, solving puzzles, backtracky exploring, and culinary alchemy will keep your brain’s gears turning, and the occasional boss battles are downright tough, requiring an arcade ninja’s quick reflexes. Save points are scattered throughout—make good use of them, because you’ll die a lot—but we couldn’t help wishing for more.